Trying to catch her breath, Lauren wobbled for a second. Amelia’s eyes flashed at Ritz and Thorenson. “If she suffers a medical setback because you tried to question her about a murder she has no knowledge of, you’ll both be hearing from me. You”—she turned directly to Tim Thorenson—“go get Detective Reese for me, right now. We’ll be waiting in the hallway.”
They left the police chief standing in the interview room and made their way slowly out to the hall. Lauren was holding onto the shorter woman, the throb becoming a full-blown pounding to her skull. She watched Thorenson dip into the other interview room, say a few words, then hold the door open for Reese as he exited. Thorenson mouthed the words I’m sorry to Lauren, but she was in too much pain to care. Her heart was thumping in her chest.
“You’re not okay,” Amelia said, touching Lauren’s forehead with two cool fingers.
“I just need—to breathe—” She bent over in a spasm of coughing.
“Riley.” Reese sounded a million miles away as Lauren sensed his hands grab onto her arms and her vision began fading into a gray fog.
Amelia yelled, “Someone call an ambulance!” Lauren felt herself sliding to the floor as the fog swallowed her up.
24
Lauren woke to the familiar brightness of a hospital room. The beeping monitors, the same nasty disinfectant smell. “Son of a bitch,” she swore, examining the IV stuck in her arm. The roar in her skull had dulled to a low ache. On the wall, directly in front of her, the whiteboard announced in neat capitals: YOUR NURSE TODAY IS ROSE in green ink. It was déjà vu all over again.
Instead of Reese stretched out in the hospital chair, it was Dayla. She looked up from scrolling through her phone messages. “You’re awake.”
“What happened this time?” Lauren struggled to sit up. Someone had tilted her hospital bed so far, she had slid almost flat.
“They thought you threw a blood clot at first. Which would have been very, very bad. But it turns out that you’re dehydrated and exhausted. I wonder how that happened?”
“Where’s Reese?”
Dayla unfurled herself, dropping her phone into her enormous black designer bag, and approached Lauren’s bed. “I sent him home before he ended up in the bed next to you for, you know, dehydration and exhaustion. You two have a very unhealthy codependent nonsexual relationship. All of the heartache, none of the fun.”
“Joe Wheeler is dead.” Lauren said it aloud more to confirm it to herself than anything else.
“I know.” Dayla’s voice became sympathetic. “It’s all over the news. Awful. I’m so sorry, Lauren.”
Lauren squeezed her eyes tight to block out the image of Joe’s crushed skull. “Are my parents on the way? Do my daughters know?” she asked, trying to keep her breathing under control.
“Relax.” Dayla waved a dismissive hand. “You only got admitted four hours ago. They’re pumping you full of fluids. You’ll be out tomorrow morning. They’re just keeping you for observation so they can cover their asses.”
Lauren opened her eyes and took as deep a breath as she could manage. “They think Reese killed Joe Wheeler.”
Dayla actually laughed out loud. “Not anymore. He has an alibi. Airtight.”
Lauren’s ears pricked up. “What is it?”
She flashed a wicked grin at Lauren. “I’m going to let him tell you.”
25
“Anna? My nurse? The one who wiped my ass and changed my tubes?”
“It wasn’t a steady thing, you know? She’d call me, I’d call her, we’d get together—”
Lauren was disgusted. “You were on a booty call with my nurse when Joe Wheeler was beat to death?”
Reese was parked on the edge of her hospital bed, baseball hat turned backward, looking a little shamefaced. Dayla was back in the chair, listening in amusement. “When you put it that way, it sounds so dirty.”
“Leaving my house without telling me almost made you a murder suspect.”
He ticked off the list of unincriminating factors on his fingers for her. “The guy who killed him was taller than Joe, who was six feet, while I am five-eleven. I’m a righty, while the assailant was clearly a lefty. And I was engaged in consensual amorous acts with a lovely young woman at the time of the homicide, which was documented—”
Lauren held up her hand, cutting him off. “Stop. I don’t want to know.”
“Not to speak ill of the dead,” said Reese, about to speak ill of the dead, “but Wheeler was a known douche bag. If he used to beat you up, I’m sure he left a string of brothers, dads, and boyfriends who wanted to kick his ass.”
“Kicking his ass is not the same as bashing his brains out.”
“His chief went after the most obvious suspect, in his mind. Now, at least, I’m eliminated, and they can concentrate on the real killer. Wheeler was still a cop. His friends on the job are hurting, including Chief Ritz. After seeing those pictures, I would love to find myself in a dark alley with the bastard who thinks he can execute a cop like that.”
Lauren mulled that over for a second. “Do they really think my attack was related to his?”
Reese shrugged. “It’s hard to ignore that angle. You’re only alive because I found you in time. Our department is cooperating with Garden Valley in the investigation, treating them as if they’re related.”
“Joy and Ben are investigating Joe Wheeler’s murder too?” She wondered if Reese had told them about Rita Walton yet. She wanted to ask, but not in front of Dayla, so she bit her tongue.
“And Thorenson and Garcia, now. You should thank Tim Thorenson, by the way,” Reese added. “He’s the one who called the union as soon as he was ordered to go pick us up.”
“I should have known. Tim is a standup guy. But I still don’t trust Garcia.”
Reese turned his Yankees hat around on his head so it faced front, another of his nervous habits: rearranging his baseball cap. “Garcia is the least of our worries. He couldn’t find a haystack in a pile of needles. He won’t add anything to the investigation and he’s too lazy to mess it up, either.”
“I still can’t believe Joe’s dead.” Lauren’s voice came out almost in a whisper. As bad as it had become between them, she still remembered the man she had once loved. He hadn’t been the best-looking guy in their police academy class, but he had been the most confident. He had encouraged her, helped her study, ran with her, and supported her when she thought she was about to give up. He didn’t show his ugly side until later, after he was on the street.
She had been young, with two daughters she was sure needed a father figure and starting a new job she wasn’t sure she could handle. He played on her fears and turned his possessiveness and jealously into faults she thought she needed to correct. He manipulated her into forgiving the beatings because they were somehow, always, her doing. It had been a very dark time in her life, brought back to reality last year when they worked on opposite sides of the Katherine Vine homicide.
The old blame came bubbling up. Joe whispering in her ear that it was all her fault, she had caused this, if she were a better person, if she had only done what she was supposed to do, none of this would have happened.
Then Lauren pushed all of those thoughts aside. She remembered the beatings and the lies and the false promises he gave her while they were together. This time was always the last time, until the next time. The day she had finally thrown Joe Wheeler out the door, she swore she would never let him make her feel that way again.
Then last year he had punched her in that parking lot and she had done nothing. He took it to mean that she was still the same old Lauren. Still ripe for his brand of tough love.
When she had cornered him in her backyard and pressed her gun to his temple, part of Lauren had wanted to pull the trigger, but part of her had wanted to let him live. She wanted him to live and see how he couldn’t affect her life anymore. She
wouldn’t allow it. She was the one in control now.
She had allowed him walk away that night.
So why was she upset now? Because he hadn’t lived long enough to see her happy? Or because someone else had done what the darkest part of her had wanted to do?
“Lauren?” The concern in Dayla’s voice brought her back.
She shook her head to clear the ghosts from it. “Sorry. I zoned out for a second. Maybe I do need to sleep.”
“I’ll call the nurse and have them give you something.” Reese punched the call button above her bed with his finger. She knew she had done more than zone out a little by the look on his face.
“Okay,” she agreed, but she didn’t close her eyes. She was afraid that the image of Joe sprawled on the ground would come back. Of his forearm, twisted and broken. Of brains and blood on the concrete. She was too exhausted to deal with it just now.
No, she’d wait for the pill and hope for a dreamless sleep.
26
With the promise to Dr. Patel that she would take better care of herself and let someone else do the detecting for a while, Lauren was home the next day. Dr. Patel didn’t bat an eye at the boldfaced lies she gave him; what else was she going to do but leave there and try to figure things out? He wasn’t a moron. She knew all he could hope for was for her not to overwork herself. Again.
She’d use the sleeping pills he prescribed her. They actually worked and chased away most of her nightmares. Not all of them, but most.
Dayla picked her up from the hospital without any fanfare and brought her home. Lauren told her she was drained and going to bed so she could get rid of her. “You promise you’ll call if you need anything?” Dayla asked, standing in the morning sunshine on Lauren’s front walk.
“I promise. Thank you for everything.”
Dayla waved and flounced up the sidewalk toward her own house. “Just be good, okay?” she called back. “Reese will kill me if anything happens to you.”
Reese had already left for work. He had gone out with Joy trying to locate the elusive Rita, who had fallen completely off the grid eight years ago. Not an arrest, not a complaint, no applications for social services or apartments. It was as if she’d totally disappeared.
Except for her voice on that answering machine.
Reese was good, but Rita was an artifact from a time on the street that was foreign to him.
“I need to get back in the game,” she told Watson as he sat wagging his tail, watching her get dressed. “What your daddy doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
The media had gone nuts when word of Joe Wheeler’s murder got out. They were eating up the idea that a madman might be trying to murder local cops. Somehow, her private cell number had gotten out—possibly from the same leak that had been plaguing the Homicide squad—and she had to change her number. Which meant Charlie Daley had no way to contact her. Which meant she was going to see him because she needed him.
Her stitches were itching, but all in all, she felt okay enough to drive. She’d been careful to eat something and drink an entire glass of orange juice before getting into her car. Hydrate, she reminded herself, or you’ll end up back in the hospital. Cranking the music up as she drove to Lackawanna, she decided she really did feel better. Or at least useful. Working was better than lying in bed doing nothing.
Joe’s face kept swimming before her eyes. She’d seen hundreds of bodies over the years, in person and in crime scene photos, killed in every way imaginable. But to see someone you used to share a bed with, someone you once loved, no matter how warped it may have become, murdered like that shook Lauren to her core. What had been done to her was brutal; what had been done to Joe was downright evil.
Lauren had to separate his case from hers, or she’d freeze up. She had to compartmentalize and concentrate on finding Rita Walton, trust that the Garden Valley cops would bring the state police in if Buffalo wasn’t enough. I have to let them handle Joe’s case, she thought as she pulled into the cemetery. I’m no good to them right now. Unless I can find out who attacked me and link the two crimes somehow.
Charlie was surprised to see her coming up the porch steps. He had dirt smeared all over his face and coveralls as he held the door open for her. “I had to tidy up after the gravediggers. Slobs, they all are. No respect.”
“We’ve seen each other look worse.” She stepped into the magically modern sitting room. Nell, hearing someone come in, stuck her head out of the pocket doors, but Charlie waved her away. She gave Lauren a cheerful smile and closed herself back into the main office.
“That we have,” he agreed. “Terrible what happened to Joe Wheeler. I know that he—”
She held out her hand, cutting him off. They had to focus on his old informant. “I need to find Rita, Charlie. Reese has been searching for her and it’s like she never existed. I need your help.”
He scratched his white bristly chin. “No one’s going to find Rita unless she wants to be found. She hasn’t lived this long because she’s stupid.”
“But can you find her?”
He looked past her, into the graveyard. “Maybe. But it’s been a long time since I was on the streets. Most of the people I knew are probably dead.”
“Then this won’t be different from any other day for you.”
He let out a snort. “Always quick with the comebacks. Give me a minute to change and clean up. I know a couple places we could stop and inquire.”
She sank down onto the floral sofa. “I’ll wait here.”
“You got a gun on you?” he asked, pausing at the staircase leading to his apartment.
“I got two. My Glock and my Smith and Wesson.”
“She swallows a peanut, you can see it sticking out of her stomach. But two frigging cannons she can hide without a wrinkle,” he muttered, creaking his way up the stairs.
27
The lower West Side had changed since Charlie Daley patrolled those streets. The Feds had RICO’d the entire 10th Street Gang eight years before, rounding up the worst of the worst and setting the stage for urban renewal. Location was everything, and with the neighborhood being so close to Downtown, Canalside, and the Elmwood Village, people had started snapping up the cheap real estate and began renovating. It was nothing to see a brand-new house that would have been on the market for hundreds of thousands in the suburbs sitting next to a derelict building. Millennials loved the funky urban vibe, being close to the arts scene, and the affordable prices.
Still, there were pockets of streets that hadn’t been revitalized yet, where the poor and old were isolated and the drugs and violence were kept contained. That’s where Lauren had found one of her witnesses from a stabbing last year, in the upper of a rundown house whose neighbors were gangbangers, addicts, and drunks. The woman had cooperated, despite what that meant on the streets, and was key in her friend’s murderer going to jail. As she and Daley rolled through the neighborhood, Lauren vaguely wondered where her witness was now. Whether she had stayed in Buffalo, or if she’d had gone back to Puerto Rico. Either way, Lauren would never know now because the cell number that she’d had for ten years as a detective had been changed. She didn’t want to think of all the calls going to her voicemail that would never be answered.
Charlie was wedged into the passenger seat of her Ford Escape. Even SUVs aren’t meant for guys his size, she thought, watching him squirm beneath the seat belt that threatened to strangle him. He had wanted to ride without wearing it until Lauren reminded him the car would angrily beep every thirty seconds until he was strapped in.
“I can’t even breathe wearing this Goddamn thing,” he griped, pulling the strap away from his chest as far as it would go.
“I couldn’t breathe when I had a knife in my lung,” she countered. “Stop being such a baby.”
“You always have to one-up me,” he said, then pointed. “Turn here. Go slow by the green ho
use with the porch.”
She let up on the gas, coasting by the old flop house. At some point there had been a fire on the second floor; black scorch marks rose from the upper glassless windows. The house number, 453, was spray painted in red across the lower front, signaling it was marked for city demolition.
“I guess Sadie don’t live there no more,” Charlie said as they passed.
Lauren continued on, letting Charlie take the lead.
“Turn down Pennsylvania Street. There’s a place I want to check out.” The window was down, his arm hanging out, despite the cold that had crept in during the night, turning late November from brisk to chilly in hours. Charlie had changed out of his coveralls into a Buffalo Bills sweatshirt and jeans. He had the cuffs stuffed down into his tan work boots, like he used to do when he was on the job. It kept the critters off your legs, he used to tell her; the roaches will climb right up into your underwear if you don’t cut them off at the pass.
“Shouldn’t your partner be doing this with you?” he asked.
“He’s trying, but I’m still a control freak. I can’t just sit home and do nothing,” she replied, slowing down to look at some older women standing on the corner, all holding plastic shopping bags. They noticed and turned toward the SUV to stare back.
Charlie snickered. “It’s not like we don’t stick out in this Ford, not in this neighborhood, being this color. And you’re staring at them.”
“I probably look like a heroin hype out trying to score some drugs with her old sugar daddy.”
“I don’t like skinny broads. I’d have to fatten you up before I became your sugar daddy.”
“Duly noted.” Lauren smiled as they passed a middle-aged man pushing a shopping cart full of groceries down the sidewalk. Stalks of celery stuck out of one of the plastic bags as his head nodded in time to the music only he could hear coming from his earbuds.
The Murder Book Page 12
